Tracy C. Gold

I just had to share this adorable video/podcast that the kids at Krieger Schechter put together during my last visit to their school. I am the Silverman-Brown author in residence this year, which means I am coming for three visits over the course of the year. In my first visit, I talked with children about coming up with ideas and research. In my second visit, we talked about drafting and structure. When I return in April, we’ll be talking about revision. Throughout, we’ve been using my book “Trick or Treat, Bugs to Eat” as a jumping off point to talk about how bats can affect a region’s ecology. Krieger Schechter is planning to have kids make bat boxes to install at the school to give these helpful bug eating critters a safe home.

I love sharing my process and hopefully inspiring all of these young people!

This new on-demand class goes through all the FAQs I get from new picture book writers, and then some!

This class is shorter and quicker than my in-depth course on writing rhyming picture books but still jam-packed with information about traditional publishing, self publishing, structure, language and everything you need to get started with writing picture books.

Find more details and enroll on Thinkific, where you will be added to a community for students of all of my classes.

Join Skillshare to access both classes, minus the community attached to them.

You can also reach out to me at tracycgold@gmail.com with questions at any time!

I love horses and I love picture books! So…whenever someone asks about picture books about horses, I’m your girl. I was going through some favorites today and thought I’d post a list.

These links are all affiliate links which means if you buy these books (or your regular Amazon purchases) through these links, you’ll be supporting my horse and picture book habits. Thank you!

What books have I missed? Please comment with your suggestions!

Clip Clop by Nicola Smee

This one is so much fun to read aloud! It’s perfect for younger kids, babies on up.

Horse Power: How Horses Changed the World by Jennifer Thermes

My kid is obsessed with this book. It is a longer non-fiction read. My kid’s takeaway is pretty much that horses make the world a better place! I agree!

If I Had a Horse by Gianna Marino

This book is spare and beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that when I saw it at the library, I knew I had to have my own copy, and bought one lickety split.

The Ultimate Book of Horses by Sandra Laboucarie illustrated by Helene Convert

This one was just recommended to me but I had to add it on here because we have a ton of the books in “The Ultimate Book of” series, and I never knew a horses one existed! This series is super interactive and fun, with more than you’ll ever want to know about cities, space, dinosaurs…you name it.

Fritz and The Beautiful Horses by Jan Brett

A scruffy pony saves the day! A beloved classic from my childhood.

Sergeant Reckless: The True Story of the Little Horse Who Became a Hero by Patricia McCormick, illustrated by Iacopo Bruno

For the older range of picture book readers (a mature four-year-old at youngest on up), this is an incredibly touching story about a brave horse who becomes a war hero. The book shows a little bit of war, but isn’t too scary.

Wild Horse Annie: Friend of the Mustangs by Tracey Fern, illustrated by Steven Salerno

Another true story, about a woman who spoke up to protect wild mustangs. A more whimsical read (I mean, just look at the adorable cover!).

This Way, Charlie by Caron Levis, illustrated by Charles Santoso

This absolutely beautiful book tells the story of a blind horse who becomes friends with a grumpy goat. It’s based on a true story, but is lyrical and spare in a way more common to fiction.

I am excited to announce my new on-demand class, “How to Write Rhyming Picture Books.” I’ve had so many friends and clients say they wanted to take the real-time classes I’ve led…but that the schedule didn’t work. Thus the idea of on-demand classes. It’s impossible to recreate the energy of real-time classes in an asynchronous mode, but I knew there had to be a way to capture at least some community feel.

I did my research, and landed on Thinkific as a platform to host online courses and a community discussion around those courses. While students will engage with the content at different times, this community will allow for discussion and for me to weigh in with feedback on student projects and questions.

When I recently polled my Facebook friends, several people asked for a class on rhyming picture books specifically. So, I have planned a class and scripted all of the videos. Now, before I film, I’m offering the class for presale. This way, I’ll make sure I have enough interest in the class to make all the videos, and I can also incorporate feedback on my curriculum to make sure I’m offering the best possible class.

So…I’m excited to introduce my pre-sale for “How to Write a Rhyming Picture Book”! Think of this like a Kickstarter…if I can get 10 people to sign up for the class by June 16, I’ll go ahead and create all the videos and launch the class by August 1 (if not earlier). 

If I can’t get 10 people to sign up, I’ll refund everyone’s money and rethink whether it’s worth offering the class. But I think I’ll find 10! 

I’m offering the class at a special discounted price before June 16 as well. Right now the class is $89 to join, a 30% discount from my plan for the permanent price ($129). 

The class includes a private community where you can connect with other writers and post your project for the class, which will be a new spin on a classic nursery rhyme. I’ll be able to chime in and provide feedback on the projects for the first 10 people who sign up for the class (and hopefully more, but that’s going to depend on demand). 

I plan to offer this class on Thinkific in both video and written format. You can watch or you can just read. For my audiobook/podcast fiends, you will also be able to purely listen to most of the class.

As a heads up, I’m likely going to launch this course on Skillshare as well eventually but that will be primarily video due to how that platform works. As of now, I’m planning to keep the course cheaper on Thinkific than the cost for a Skillshare membership. 

Find more details and sign up here!

Please feel free to reach out with questions at tracycgold@gmail.com.

Looking for a class that’s more for beginners? Check out my on-demand class on writing and publishing picture books for beginners on Thinkific and Skillshare.

This course includes:

• The opportunity to post one of your books and get feedback from other students and me
• Details on basic types of picture books and their typical length
• Guidelines for structuring picture books
• Tips on style and language in picture books
• Templates for formatting both rhyming and prose picture books

Feel free to email me at tracycgold@gmail.com if you have any questions!

I have great news about picture book query letters: they can be extremely short and simple! Many authors agonize over query letters for novels and memoirs because they are key in convincing an agent to read a whole book. Picture books, on the other hand, are so short that agents are likely to at least skim the whole book as long as the query letter is half-decent. Back when I was an agent intern going through query letters, that’s certainly what I did.

Of course, you should still carefully compose a solid query letter, but much of the advice you’ll find online about query letters is geared toward longer books. So, here’s my take on writing a picture book query letter (with an example of my own successful letter).

Keep in mind that traditional publishers find the illustrators for their books. You only need to submit the manuscript and there’s no need to mention an illustrator. If you’re an author/illustrator, read to the bottom for some tips just for you!

Follow the basic template you’d use for any book: the hook, the book, and the cook. 

• “The hook” is your elevator pitch—how would you describe the book in 30 seconds to intrigue someone? 
• “The book” is your longer description of the book—if you need it—and how that book fits into the market. As you’ll see in my example below, I only used “the hook” to describe my book on its own, and the next paragraph was describing my book in relation to other published books. I didn’t want to say my own book was the next “Goodnight Moon” or “Go the F*ck to Sleep,” but I knew my book was in conversation with those books, so I found a way to work them in. In addition, I included titles published by Familius to show that my book would be a good fit for them. When you’re writing to an agent and not directly to a publisher, it’s much harder to find books they’ve worked on. I would not even try to look this up, but rather just use any relevant book that has been published in the last few years. 
• “The cook” is your bio. Keep this very short and sweet. If you have relevant expertise, include it—for example, if you teach kids how to sail, and your book is about a sailboat, or you’re a shark researcher writing about sharks, definitely say so. 

Note: for novels and memoirs, you’ll hear that you should not give away the ending in the query letter. For a picture book, I would 100% give away the ending. Reading a longer book is an immersive experience and you might need the suspense to keep agents turning the page. Yes, some picture books rely on suspense, too, but the agent/editor is going to see the ending in about two minutes once they skim your manuscript, so you might as well get them surprised/chuckling about the ending in the query.

After your query, unless the submission guidelines say otherwise, I would recommend pasting your book below your query and attaching it. Say so in your email, and include the courtesy line “This is a simultaneous submission” if you’re writing to more than one agent or publisher. If you’re writing to agents, you can add something like “I would be happy to send along other picture books if you’re interested,” as agents generally like to see multiple picture books before signing a new client.

Picture Book Query Letter Example

Below is my successful query for “Everyone’s Sleepy but the Baby” (affiliate link). 

One of the best parts of my work as a picture book author and freelance editor is talking to people who have written their own picture books. I love hearing their ideas and guiding them along the process of figuring out what to do next with their books. 

I recently found myself wishing for a centralized place for the resources and advice I most commonly share. When I first started working with picture books, I had to piece together all of this by myself, and a blog post like this would have been super helpful. (Want a more thorough guide? Check out my on-demand class on writing picture books for beginners on Thinkific and Skillshare.)

So, here we go!